"I do," put in Hal, who had been noticeably quiet and meditative since the last very important discovery. "This makes it look as if that last distress message we got from the island was no fake affair?"
"Why?" asked Bud.
"Why!" flashed Hal. "It's plain enough to me. Those four fellows, he said were coming to attack him, probably overpowered him and swept away his camp, radio outfit, and all."
"And what did they do with him?" demanded Cub, eager for the last chapter of the plot.
Hal seemed about to make answer to this question, but something of the nature of a "lump in his throat" checked his utterance. His friends read his mind without difficulty.
"Never mind, Hal," said Cub with his bravest effort at consolation; "if the prisoner on this island was your cousin, we'll follow those enemies of his to the end of the world and make them give him up, won't we, dad?"
"Don't you worry too much over this affair, Hal," urged Mr. Perry by way of response to his son's extravagant assurance. "If the person you got those messages from was your cousin, I don't believe the fellows who were after him had reason to do him any serious harm. But you may be sure that we will not leave a stone unturned in an effort to solve this—this—"
"Mystery," suggested Cub mischievously grasping at the opportunity to give his father a good-natured dig.
"Call it what you wish," smiled Mr. Perry. "But under any name you may be pleased to style this problem, we are going to go after it with some more mathematics—"
"And geography," interposed Cub.